What to do when you can no longer reinvent the world and there is still so much to say and question? Max Schaffer’s answer lies in new interpreting and re-interpreting what is already there, in shifting and moving found material and, last but not least, in constantly undermining expectations.
But how exactly does he proceed? What are the topics that interest him? How does he relate to questions of artistic authorship or to the traditions of institutional critique? Where does he draw the line between artistic composition and office furniture or tourist boat trips? Why does a poster motif announce an exhibition, but then no longer appears in it? Or also: what does an opening date have to do with an exhibition title?
Janneke de Vries, Max Schaffer and the audience will first discuss these and other questions during a tour through Schaffer’s current exhibition “Power of Style” before turning to other works by the artist to locate his GAK project within his artistic approach.
Max Schaffer (*1985 in Santiago de Chile) studied at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna with Daniel Richter and Heimo Zobernig. In 2011 he won the Bremen Promotion Prize for Fine Arts. Schaffer has already participated in numerous international group exhibitions, e.g. in the Kunstsaele Berlin, the Kunstverein in Hamburg, the Landesgalerie Linz or the Forum Stadtpark in Graz. Following his solo project “Enlightenment Strikes Back” at the Salzburg Kunstverein in 2013, “Power of Style” is his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. Max Schaffer lives in Berlin and is represented by the galleries Gabriele Senn, Vienna, and Aanant & Zoo, Berlin.